One month with my .44-77

[Distant Thunder]

Now that I have had my Shiloh 1874 in .44-77 for a little more than a month I think it’s time to review my experience with it. I had Shiloh rebarrel this almost 30 year old rifle with a 17-twist Krieger barrel and Shiloh’s standard grease groove chamber with the intention of shooting 2-diameter paper patch bullets in competition. I pretty much shoot any kind of match I can get to with reasonable travel time. That includes Creedmoor, mid range paper matches, gong matches and occasionally silhouette.

For me the .44-77 has been very easy to get up and shooting well with paper patch bullets, both straight sided bore diameter and 2-diameter type.

Brass is available though it can be a bit expensive. I have used both BACO converted .50-110 cases and JBA .44-77 cases and both are excellent. The BACO brass is still being produced and is reasonably price. The rims are a little small in diameter but that isn’t a problem and I never even notice it. Actually it’s better for fitting loading blocks and ammo boxes.

I found that I had to turn the necks on the BACO cases removing about .002” per side to be able to seat my 2-diameter ppb which is patched and sized to .447”. This is an easy operation and actually gave me a perfect fit in my chamber.

The Lee Precision .43 Mauser size die will do the initial case sizing very well and is reasonably priced.

For bullet molds I started with an adjustable pp mold from BACO (#431ADJ). This proved to be very handy for fireforming and early load development. I learned that for fireforming with the .44-77 it is best to just load a ppb over a wad and a case full of black powder and just blow the cases out with no concern for accuracy or load development. The JBA cases are significantly undersize and will hold as much as 10 grains more powder after being fully formed. The BACO cases come more closely fit to the chamber.

For fireforming I turned my adjustable mold down to cast a 350 grain bullet and that work out best and didn’t use anymore lead than necessary. For powder I used whatever I had that was leftover from various lots or grades I don’t use anymore.

After I had my rifle back from Shiloh and did a chamber cast and measured the actual bore size I adjusted the dimensions on the 2-diameter elliptical paper patch bullet designed for me by Arnie Seitz (beltfed) so that it would fit the Shiloh chamber and my .438” bore. Buffalo Arms was good enough to add the design to their catalog (#441505EPP) and now it is available for any shooter with a 17-twist or faster barrel and a chamber similar to Shiloh’s standard grease groove chamber. I’ll post more on the design and dimensioning of the bullet in another post.

When I got the mold the sample bullet that was sent with it check out exactly as I dimensioned the drawing and fit my barrel as prefect as could be. For me a proper fit (snug) is very important to good accuracy.

Early load development showed this bullet to be very easy to work with and no load I tried shot bad and some are very accurate.

In my rifle the bullet seats only .090” in the case and that allows plenty of room for powder. I like 1 ½ Swiss, it has worked very well in my straight case .45 caliber rifles and it is doing very well in this bottleneck case also. Down the road I would like to try some other powders and other 2-D PPB designs, but that will take time.

The 505 grain BACO 2-D bullet has shot very well for me at 200m (220 yards) with the following load.

BACO 441505 cast at 17-1 lead/lead free solder (95/5) wrapped in 9# onionskin 100% cotton.
.060” LDPE wad
86.0 grains of 1 ½ Swiss (lot 18/01/2016)
BACO cases
Federal 210 LR or 215 LRM (I can’t tell enough difference at 220 yards to tell which is best yet.)
C.O.A.L. = 3.600”

The 86 grains I just dump into my 14” drop tube and that leaves plenty of compression. I run the patched bullets through a .4465” Lee style size die and that just touches the base diameter and presses the fold over flat to the base. That way they stay wrapped if I handle them with care.

I wrap each bullet, run through the size die and then it is a snug fit in the case mouth and I twist it in the direction of the wrap as I press it against the wad. Then I run the load round into a taper crimp die and just touch the case mouth. The bullet can still be pulled and reseated with my fingers but will not fall out with normal handling.

This load has put 10 shots in 1 ¾” high x 3 1/8” wide in a variable wind that was mostly right to left.

This is the load I will shoot at the mid range paper match (300 & 600 yards) at Wisconsin Rapids, WI on August 22. This will be the first paper match and I will be able to see how well everything is working out to 600 yards. If the load holds up well I will shoot the same load at the Fall Classic at Lodi, WI on September 26 & 27. That match will be 6 relays at 1000 yards over two days and will really tell me how things are working.

I need to work with different primers too but right now primers have all but disappeared around here and what there is doesn’t fit this type of shooting very well.

After the Rapids match I will report my findings and thoughts but right now it looks like the .44-77 will preform well for me.